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MANNERS AN13 MORALS. 103
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
- - And Prompt Me " , Hence Plain And , ...
are now only talked about , not acted upon . Manners , from being the index of virtuehave become , the mask of vice .
, ; This tendency of manners to _o _^^ _tstrip morals is , surely , a matter to be noted .. It is only in the earlier stages of the disease that it
can be dealt with . Prevention , not cure , must be the aim . True m anners are to morals as cleanliness to bodily health . False
manners are as deleterious cosmetics , overlaying impurity and poisoning the blood . Once used , the natural bloom and freshness
of the skin is injured ; they can no more be laid aside ; all that can be done is to spread over the deepening- wrinkles ever a thicker
coating . When the . ground beneath is all hollowit is a perilous thing to
, disturb the thin surface . When manners have become false and morals corrupt , how shall we attempt to bring manners back to
their pristine truth and honesty ? It is like digging among the rank vegetation which covers some huge grave of pestilence . The
noxious effluvium , long pent , will rise and destroy all before it . . Truth is truth and a lie a lie , no doubt , and hypocrisy the worst
of sins ; but it is better that the sinners should consummate their own doom by added hypocrisy , than that the example of their open
vice should contaminate the last remnants of purity . Even the _jsense of shame in vice itself is as a lingering reminiscence to the
fallen angel of the lost Heaven . Decency , however much mixed with lies , is , to the last , a good .
Since , then , it is most perilous , if not impossible , to bring back manners to their legitimate honesty when they have become utterly
and connrmedly dishonest ; all care should be taken to measure accurately the proportion which manners bear to morals in each
age . Prevention , not cure . The shams should be detected and exposed as they arise , and not suffered to take their place in the
code of manners as realities . Over-fastidiousness , like luxury , is an illegitimate offspring of advancing civilization ; like luxury , it
becomes a necessity when it has once gained the ascendancy . Both , diverging from the true course of civilization , pursue after a
time a retrograde path . ' Luxury ends in enervation , over-fastidiousiiess in impurity ; both help to consummate the ruin of the
community where they are suffered to gain ground . The signs of the present time are , on the whole , hopeful .
Though there are instances enough of false manners , yet there is evidently a spirit of reaction and reform at work . . If the
conventional standards of certain virtues are low , we , at all events , know and confess that they are low . The rising generation , stirred
up by men of force , such as Carlyle and Kingsley and others of other schools—the rising generationthough their unwonted
spe-. culations a great realit be as y , yet having somewhat great yeast duties y , ' , have ; that come ther to e see are that lc eternal life is
verities . therewith , " . The that chang social © intercourse in the philoso is to p hy carried of life is marvellous conformity .
Manners An13 Morals. 103
MANNERS AN 13 MORALS . 103
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1862, page 103, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101862/page/31/
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